Ok so I have a big issue and I don't know what caused or is the cause of this. My dog is afraid of EVERYTHING - from cars, to the hamper rolling on the floor, to the sound of a trash bag, to EVERYTHING and I want to break that so bad. Any suggestions?

Also, the other thing that is really just not good is that he gets so excited when we come home after work. I have heard they have serious separation anxiety but when we get in the house he jumps all over us and he is just out of control for like 5 mins and it's bad - any suggestions on that? thanks

First a few questions for you - how old is your dog? How much and what kind of socialization have you done? How much and what kind of training have you done?

My dog is 20 months. In my opinion he gets socialized a lot. We take him to the dog park every weekend faithfully and we exercise and walk him on a daily basis, he is always running into all sorts of moving objects and people and other dogs. As far as training, I won't lie we have not done any formal training. But we think with what we have done so far we have done well. We are now going to be putting him into formal training classes beginning next month. But he does know the basic commands, sit, stay, down. But sometimes he wont react right away.

For the jumping up on you when you get home - Caleb has done the same thing to me, even though my DH is home all day. The best thing to do is cross your arms and turn away from him. At first he may keep jumping, but what you want to do is to remain calm and have absolutely no interaction with him until he calms down and keeps all 4 feet on the floor. then and only then can he get some calm attention, maybe a quiet pet or a cookie for good behavior (best thing with Caleb is the cookie). It may take a while, but I've found that this approach works well.

For the jumping up on you when you get home - Caleb has done the same thing to me, even though my DH is home all day. The best thing to do is cross your arms and turn away from him. At first he may keep jumping, but what you want to do is to remain calm and have absolutely no interaction with him until he calms down and keeps all 4 feet on the floor. then and only then can he get some calm attention, maybe a quiet pet or a cookie for good behavior (best thing with Caleb is the cookie). It may take a while, but I've found that this approach works well.

Thank you - I usually do not pay him any mind when he is all over the place. I will continue to do that - thank you

Taking that a step further, can you train him to go grab a toy? If his mouth and brain are engaged he may forget to jump.

If you have been ignoring him for this as Johanna suggests for a very long time without improvement something is going on. Most dogs pick up pretty quickly that the rules have changed and learn to comply to get what they want which is your attention.

I do see that you said 'USUALLY do not pay him any mind' tho and that may be the problem. What you may have inadvertently done is put him on a variable reward schedule for jumping on you. A variable reward schedule just means that in his doggy brain you have rewarded him by paying attention (any kind -positive or negative) off and on, so therefore the behavior continues. Any behavior that is rewarded off and on (or variable) is a very entrenched behavior and generally very hard to stop and extinguishes (goes away) slowly.

When we reward off and on we are playing the slot machine and we keep playing hoping for the jackpot. That is what the dog is doing, he contiunes to jump hoping to get a jackpot THAT HE KNOWS WILL COME SOON.

To be successful here you must immediately stop rewarding any jumping ANY JUMPING!!! NO REWARD EVER!!! (Not just usually.) That means everyone in the house all the time.

I would train him to get a toy as noted above or train him to an incompatible behavior. ie pre-empt him and tell him to sit before he jumps. No attention until he is calmy sitting. No attention means no eye contact, no touching, no talking, no yelling NOTHING!!!! If you have to steop back outside to avoid interacting with him.

Just a note, a behavior that has been hightly rewarded and all of sudden stops being rewarded, WILL get worse for awhile. This is called an extinction burst and it will go away if you tough it out and do not give into the dog. What the dog is trying to do is figure out why his behavior is no longer getting him what he wants so he increases the bahavior hoping for the slot machine to pay off.

Good luck.

I might also not consider a second dog until this one is more mature adn better trained. Otherwise you will have double the trouble.

But he does know the basic commands, sit, stay, down. But sometimes he wont react right away.

My mother always use to say – slow obedience is no obedience. Your dog either does not fully understand the command and is just guessing at what you want him to do or he is resisting obeying your command.

So to help with the jumping issue I would start by working on his obedience.

True separation anxiety is not as common as many people make it out to be. Some times what people mistake for separation anxiety is actually a learned behavior. As the others have said, ignore the dog when he is jumping all around. This is where a crate can come in real handy. Do you own a crate?

IMO - You need to work on his training.

The fear thing is hard to answer - what is your dog doing that makes you think he is fearful of everything? What are you doing to try to solve this?

i am glad you come back here from time to time. i know that if you keep the same hours as you did in your earlier posts it must make it very hard to train your dog the way you wanted. you mentioned that you were doing agility at one time. then when you wanted a schutzhund dog, i just assumed you were going to start Bruschi in it too. have your trainers been helping you in this ongoing OB problem?

You need to really evaluate what is going on with your current dog before adding another. It may help or hurt your current dog when you add a puppy to the pack.

Are you prepared for your current dog possibly being terrified of the puppy or afraid of the puppy and may possibly hurt him/her.

Bringing a puppy into a house with a fearful dog can some times create problems. 1. The pup will look up to your current dog and mimic his behavior.2. The current dog may be fear aggressive towards the pup and hurt the pup.3. Are you prepared to raise the pup independent of the current dog. Separate area's, separate training?

Having two dogs can be good or can be bad. I had to separate Cheyenne and DeeDee because of DeeDee's nerve problems, Cheyenne had no tolerance for DeeDee's weaknesses. I also kept her exposure to Lakota to a minimum when he was a young pup. When he was a year and a half her could deal with her issues without them becoming his issues. But I was never able to have Cheyenne and DeeDee together.

So I have seen both sides, the good and the bad. You just need to be prepared to deal with the bad if it happens.